Copyright 1979, Carl R. Rogers
        The Foundations of the Person-Centred 
                       Approach
    (In writing this paper I have drawn heavily on two previous articles of mine, 
           separated by a number of years; Rogers (1963, 1978)).
                   by Carl R. Rogers, Ph.D.
      Resident Fellow, Centre for Studies of the Person, La Jolla, California
      I think this might be the citation trail (FJC): 
      Rogers, Carl R. "The Foundations of the Person-Centered Approach." Education 
      100, no. 2 (1979): 98-107. Also published in Rogers, Carl R. A Way of Being. 
      Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1980. 
      Retrieved from: http://www.elementsuk.com/libraryofarticles/foundations.pdf
    I wish to point to two related tendencies which have acquired more and more importance in my thinking as 
    the years have gone by. One of these is an actualising tendency, a characteristic of organic life. One is a 
    formative tendency in the universe as a whole. Taken together they are, I believe, the foundation blocks of 
    the person-centered approach.
    Its Characteristics
    But what do I mean by a person-centered approach? For me it expresses the primary theme of my whole 
    professional life, as that theme has become clarified through experience, interaction with others, and 
    research. I smile as I think of the various labels I have given to this theme during the course of my career - 
    nondirective counselling, client-centered therapy, student-centered teaching, group-centered leadership. As 
    the fields of application have grown in number and variety, the label "person-centered approach" seems the 
    most descriptive.
    The central hypothesis of this approach can be briefly stated. (See Rogers, 1959, for a complete statement.) 
    It is that the individual has within him or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering the self-
    concept basic attitudes, and his or her self-directed behaviour - and that these resources can be tapped if 
    only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided.
    There are three conditions which constitute this growth - promoting climate, whether we are speaking of the 
    relationship between therapist and client, parent and child, leader and group, teacher and student, or 
    administrator and staff. The conditions apply, in fact, in any situation in which the development of the person 
    is a goal. I have described these conditions in previous writings; I present here a brief summary from the 
    point of view of psychotherapy, but the description applies to all of the foregoing relationships.
    The first element has to do with genuineness, realness, or congruence. The more the therapist is him or 
    herself in the relationship, putting up no professional front or personal facade, the greater is the likelihood 
    that the client will change and grow in a constructive manner. It means that the therapist is openly being the 
    feelings and attitudes that are flowing within at the moment. The term transparent catches the flavour of this 
    condition - the therapist makes himself or herself transparent to the client; the client can see right through 
    what the therapist is in the relationship; the client experiences no holding back on the part of the therapist. 
    As for the therapist, what he or she is experiencing is available to awareness, can be lived in the 
    relationship, and can be communicated if appropriate. Thus there is a close matching, or congruence, 
    between what is being experienced at the gut level, what is present in awareness, and what is expressed 
    to the client.
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    The second attitude of importance in creating a climate for change is acceptance, or caring or prizing - 
    unconditional positive regard. It means that when the therapist is experiencing a positive, acceptant attitude 
    toward whatever the client is at that moment, therapeutic movement or change is more likely. It involves the 
    therapist's willingness for the client to be whatever immediate feeling is going on - confusion, resentment, 
    fear, anger, courage, love, or pride. It is a non-possessive caring. The therapist prizes the client in a total 
    rather than a conditional way.
    The third facilitative aspect of the relationship is empathic understanding. This means that the therapist 
    senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and 
    communicates this understanding to the client. When functioning best the therapist is so much inside the 
    private world of the other that he or she can clarify not only the meanings of which the client is aware but 
    even those just below the level of awareness. This kind of sensitive, active listening is exceedingly rare in 
    our lives. We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet 
    listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.
    How does this climate which I have just described bring about change? Briefly, as the person is accepted 
    and prized, he or she tends to develop a more caring attitude toward him or herself. As the person is 
    empathically heard, it becomes possible for him or her to listen more accurately to the flow of inner 
    experiencings. But as the person understands and prizes self, there is a development of a self more 
    congruent with the experiencings. He or she is thus becoming more real, more genuine. These tendencies, 
    the reciprocal of the therapist attitudes,mean that the person is a more effective growth-enhancer for him or 
    herself. There is a greater freedom to be the whole person that he or she inwardly is. (Rogers, 1962)
    The Evidence
    There is a body of steadily mounting research evidence which by and large supports the view that when 
    these facilitative conditions are present, changes in personality and behaviour do indeed occur. Such 
    research has been carried on from 1949 to the present. Studies have been made of psychotherapy with 
    troubled persons; with schizophrenics; of the facilitation of learning in the schools; of other interpersonal 
    relationships. Some excellent and little known recent research has been done by Aspy, Roebuck and others 
    in education (1972, 1976), and by Tausch and colleagues in Germany in many different fields (summary, 
    1978).
    A Directional Process
    Practice, theory and research make it clear that the whole person-centered approach rests on a basic trust 
    in the organism. There is evidence from many disciplines to support an even broader statement. We can say 
    that there is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive 
    fulfilment of its inherent possibilities. In man, too, there is a natural tendency toward a more complex and 
    complete development. The term that has most often been used for this is the actualising tendency, and it is 
    present in all living organisms.
    Whether we are speaking of a flower or an oak tree, of an earthworm or a beautiful bird, of an ape or a 
    man, we will do well, I believe, to recognise that life is an active process, not a passive one. Whether the 
    stimulus arises from within or without, whether the environment is favourable or unfavourable, the 
    behaviours of an organism can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing, and 
    reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life. This tendency is operative at all times. 
    Indeed it is only the presence or absence of this total directional process which enables us to tell whether a 
    given organism is alive or dead.
    The actualising tendency can of course be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without 
    destroying the organism remember that in my boyhood the potato bin in which we stored our winter supply 
    of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small basement window. The conditions were 
    unfavourable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout - pale white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green 
    shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow two 
    or three feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. They were, in their bizarre, 
    futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would 
    never become a plant, never mature, never fulfil their real potentiality. But under the most adverse 
    circumstances they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing 
    with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the back wards of 
    state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavourable have been the conditions in which 
    these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet the 
    directional tendency in them is to be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are 
    striving; in the only ways they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To 
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    us the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life's desperate attempt to become itself. It is this 
    potent constructive tendency' which is an underlying basis of the person-centered approach.
    Some Confirming Examples
    I am not alone in seeing such an actualising tendency as the fundamental answer to the question of what 
    makes an organism "tick." Goldstein (1947), Maslow (1954), Angyal (1941, 1965), Szent-Gyoergyi (1974), 
    and others have held similar views and have influenced my own thinking. I have pointed out that this 
    tendency involves a development toward the differentiation of organs and functions; it involves 
    enhancement through reproduction. Szent-Gyoergyi says that he cannot explain the mysteries of biological 
    development "without supposing an innate 'drive' in living matter to perfect itself" (op.cit., p. 17).
    The organism, in its normal state, moves toward its own fulfilment and toward self-regulation and an 
    independence from external control.
    But is this view confirmed by other evidence? Let me point to some of the work in biology which supports 
    the concept of the actualising tendency. One example, replicated with different species, is the work of 
    Driesch with sea urchins many years ago. Driesch learned how to tease apart the two cells which are 
    formed after the first division of the fertilised egg. Had they been left to develop normally it is clear that each 
    of these two cells would have grown into a portion of a sea urchin larva, the contributions of both being 
    needed to form a whole creature. So it seems equally obvious that when the two cells are skilfully 
    separated, each, if it grows, will simply develop into some portion of a sea urchin. But this is overlooking the 
    directional and actualising tendency characteristic of all organic growth. It is found that each cell, if it can be 
    kept alive, now develops into a whole sea urchin larva - a bit smaller than usual, but normal and complete.
    I am sure that I choose this example because it seems so closely analogous to my experience in dealing with 
    individuals in a therapeutic relationship, my experience in facilitating intensive groups, my experience of 
    providing "freedom to learn" for students in classes. In these situations the most impressive fact about the 
    individual human being seems to be his directional tendency toward wholeness, toward actualisation of his 
    potentialities. I have not found psychotherapy or group experience effective when I have tried to create in 
    another individual something which is not there, but I have found that if I can provide the conditions which 
    make for growth, then this positive directional tendency brings about constructive results. The scientist with 
    the divided sea urchin egg is in the same situation. He cannot cause the cell to develop in one way or 
    another, but if he focuses his skill on providing the conditions which permit the cell to survive and grow, 
    then the tendency for growth and the direction of growth will be evident, and will come from within the 
    organism. I cannot think of a better analogy for therapy or the group experience, where, if I can supply a 
    psychological amniotic fluid, forward movement of a constructive sort will occur.
    I would like to add one comment which may be clarifying. Sometimes this growth tendency is spoken of as if 
    it involved the development of all the potentialities of the organism. This is clearly not true. The organism 
    does not, as someone has pointed out, tend toward developing its capacity for nausea, nor does it actualise 
    its potentiality for self-destruction, nor its ability to bear pain. Only under unusual or perverse circumstances 
    do these potentialities become actualised. It is clear that the actualising tendency is selective and directional, 
    a constructive tendency if you will.
    Support from Modern Theory and Experience
    Pentony (unpublished paper, 1978) points out forcefully that those who favour this view of an actualising 
    tendency "do not need to be inhibited by the belief that it is in conflict with modern science or theories of 
    knowledge" (p. 20). He describes the differing recent epistemologies, particularly that of Murayama (1977). It 
    is now theorised that the "genetic code" does not contain all the information necessary to specify the mature 
    organism. Instead, it contains a set of rules determining the interaction of the dividing cells. Much less 
    information is needed to codify the rules, than to guide every aspect of maturing development. "Thus 
    information can be generated within the organism system - information can grow" (p. 9, italics mine). Hence 
    Driesch's sea urchin cells are doubtless following the coded rules, and consequently are able to develop in 
    original, not previously or rigidly specified ways.
    All this goes deeply against the current (and possibly outdated) epistemology of the social sciences, which 
    holds that a "cause" is followed in a one-way direction by an "effect." Murayama and others see it quite 
    differently - that there are mutual cause-effect interactions which amplify deviations and permit new 
    information and new forms to develop. This "morphogenetic epistemology" appears to be basic to an 
    understanding of all living systems, including all such growth processes as the growth of an organism. 
    Murayama states that an understanding of biology "lies in the recognition that the biological processes are 
    reciprocal causal processes, not random processes" (1977, p.130). On the other hand, as he points out 
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    elsewhere, an understanding of biology does not emerge from an epistemology based on one-way cause-
    effect systems. Thus there is great need to rethink the stimulus-response, cause-effect basis on which 
    most social science rests.
    The work in the field of sensory deprivation shows how strong is the organismic tendency to amplify 
    diversities and create new information and new forms. Certainly tension reduction or the absence of 
    stimulation is a far cry from being the desired state of the organism. Freud could not have been more wrong 
    in his postulate that "The nervous system is... an apparatus which would even, if this were feasible, 
    maintain itself in an altogether unstimulated condition" (1953, p. 63). On the contrary, when deprived of 
    external stimuli, the human organism produces a flood of internal stimuli sometimes of the most bizarre sort. 
    John Lilly (1972) was one of the first to tell of his experiences when suspended weightless in a soundproof 
    tank of water. He speaks of the trance-like states, the mystical experiences, the sense of being tuned in on 
    communication networks not available to ordinary consciousness, of experiences which can only be called 
    hallucinatory. It is very clear that when he is receiving an absolute minimum of any external stimuli, the 
    person opens himself to a flood of experiencing which goes far beyond that of everyday living. The 
    individual most certainly does not lapse into homeostasis, into a passive equilibrium. This only occurs in 
    diseased organisms.
    A Trustworthy Base
    Thus, to me it is meaningful to say that the substratum of all motivation is the organismic tendency toward 
    fulfilment. This tendency may express itself in the widest range of behaviours, and in response to a very 
    wide variety of needs. To be sure, certain wants of a basic sort must be at least partially met before other 
    needs become urgent. Consequently the tendency of the organism to actualise itself may at one moment 
    lead to the seeking of food or sexual satisfaction, and yet unless these needs are overpoweringly great, 
    even these satisfactions will be sought in ways which enhance rather than diminish self-esteem. And other 
    fulfilment will also be sought in the transactions with the environment - the need for exploration, for 
    producing change in the environment, for play, for self-exploration when that is perceived as an avenue to 
    enhancement - all of these and many other behaviours are basically an expression of the actualising 
    tendency.
    We are, in short, dealing with an organism which is always seeking, always initiating, always "up to 
    something." There is one central source of energy in the human organism. It is a trustworthy function of the 
    whole system rather than of some portion of it. It is perhaps most simply conceptualised as a tendency 
    toward fulfilment, toward actualisation, involving not only the maintenance but also the enhancement of the 
    organism.
    A Broader View: The Formative Tendency
    But there are many who are critical of this point of view. They regard it as too optimistic, not dealing 
    adequately with the negative element, the evil in persons, the dark side in human beings.
    Consequently I would like to put this directional tendency in a broader context. In doing so I shall draw 
    heavily on the work and thinking of others, from disciplines other than my own. I have learned from many 
    scientists, but I wish to mention a special indebtedness to the works of Albert Szent-Gyoergyi (1974), a 
    Nobel Prize biologist, and Lancelot Whyte (1974), a historian of ideas.
    My main thesis is this. There appears to be a formative tendency at work in the universe which can be 
    observed at every level. This tendency has received much less attention than it deserves.
    Physical scientists up to now have focused primarily on entropy, the tendency toward deterioration. They 
    know a great deal about this tendency toward disorder. Studying closed systems they can give this 
    tendency a clear mathematical description. They know that order or organization tends to deteriorate into 
    randomness, each stage less organised than the last.
    We are also very familiar with deterioration in organic life. The system - whether plant, animal, or human - 
    eventually deteriorates into a lower degree of functioning organization, into a lesser and lesser degree of 
    order, until decay reaches a stasis. In one sense this is what a part of medicine is all about - a concern with 
    the malfunctioning or the deterioration of an organ, or the organism as a whole. The complex process of the 
    death of the physical organism is increasingly well understood.
    So a great deal is known of the universal tendency of systems at all levels to deteriorate in the direction of 
    less and less orderliness, more and more randomness. When it operates, it is a one-way street. The world 
    seems to be a great machine, running down and wearing out.
    But there is far less recognition of, or emphasis on, the even more important formative tendency which can 
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